Tuesday, June 25, 2013

All about clay, part 4

By Renny Doyle

With your flattened clay in hand, start on the high points of the vehicle. Apply a generous amount of lubricant to the surface.
 
Begin on the high points of the vehicle and with strokes in the direction of airflow. Make the strokes from front to back and break the area into reachable sections that are small enough to clay without the lubricating agent drying.
 
Follow these claying strokes by drying the area and rubbing your hand across the surface to inspect for smoothness.
Inspect the area with the magnifying glass and compare to the areas not yet clayed. This action allows you to visually see the change.
 
If surface debris remains, you may want to re-clay and this time start in the opposite direction of airflow or from front to back and then side-to-side. This change in direction will sometimes dislodge surface material that was not coming off with single direction strokes.
 
Tip: As you use the clay bar, make certain you turn the clay. This is done by rolling the clay back out and kneading the clay, which will cause the clean internal clay to move to the outer areas and thus reduce the chances of micro surface scratches.
 
You should perform this step several times while claying a vehicle.
 
Repeat the above steps on the entire vehicle, finalizing the top sections first. Leave the lower 12 ? of the vehicle for last, as these areas are usually the most contaminated and can cause a quick death for clay bars.
 
When you have completed the claying process you may need to re-wash the vehicle or at least use a liquid detailer to wipe the finish down so that the finish is ready for the next step within the detail process.


(from: http://www.carwash.com/articles/87701-all-about-clay-part-4)